Ashton’s choreography for Le Rossignol was created for The Metropolitan Opera’s 1981 Stravinsky centenary tribute, which featured this rarely staged opera as part of a triple programme with designs by David Hockney. At the request of the producer, John Dexter, Ashton devised the movement for the Nightingale and the Fisherman – danced by Natalia Makarova and Anthony Dowell – while the equivalent sung roles were performed from the pit. The opera was revived by The Royal Opera two years later, and at The Met in 1983, but Le Rossignol in Ashton’s choreography then fell from the repertory. It was reconstructed and preserved for possible future performances by Dowell – in collaboration with Benesh choreologist Lorraine Gregory – as part of a 2017 Ashton Rediscovered masterclass.

New Stagings / Productions

Royal Opera, 1983

STAGING

Royal Opera

DANCERS

as above

FIRST PERFORMANCE

Royal Opera House, London, 19 September 1983

Metropolitan Opera, 2003

STAGING

Metropolitan Opera

REPRODUCED BY

uncredited

DANCERS

The Nightingale: Julie Kent; The Fisherman: Damian Woetzel

FIRST PERFORMANCE

Metropolitan Opera House, New York NY, 9 October 2003

Copyright © 2004 by David Vaughan. ‘Work note’ © Frederick Ashton Foundation.

This listing is part of a chronology that was originally published in Vaughan’s Frederick Ashton and His Ballets (Alfred E Knopf 1976; 2nd ed., London: Dance Books, 1999) and includes new productions added since then, and up until 2007